This study examines how center-based parenting interventions aimed at improving early child development in rural China affect the mental health of caregivers. Data from an analytic sample of 615 caregiver–child dyads (children aged 6 to 24 months, 48.5% girls; data collection: 2015–2017) in a 2-year cluster randomized controlled trial conducted in 100 villages showed that the intervention had no significant effect on caregiver depressive (β = − .047, SE = .079), anxiety (β = .040, SE = .076), or stress (β = .032, SE = .081) symptoms. Subgroup analyses found no significant difference in effects on mental health by prespecified characteristics after adjustment for multiple comparisons, except that the caregivers of children without social–emotional delay at baseline exhibited lower depression scores after the intervention (β = − .205, SE = .097, p = .043). The findings suggest that the center-based parenting intervention focused solely on strengthening parenting skills may be insufficient to improve caregiver mental health over 2 years.

In rural China, there is an urgent need for investment and innovative approaches for addressing adolescent mental health issues. This embedded mixed-methods study examines the effectiveness of a social-emotional learning (SEL) program in rural primary schools across China and the factors affecting compliance among teachers delivering the program. Pre- and post-intervention surveys assessed its effect on 2027 students in 49 schools, and 38 teachers were interviewed during the intervention. Results show that SEL courses improved student mental health. Some teachers reported increased workload and lack of support, while others noted the importance of mental health education and positive student outcomes. Performance incentives and the positive perceptions of SEL among teachers were crucial for effective delivery, though workload and lack of support often limited commitment. Overall, enhancing rural students' well-being through SEL programs requires raising awareness for SEL among teachers and building institutional support.

Objectives
Considering the importance of caregiver mental health for early childhood development, this study investigates risk and protective factors of mental health of mothers and grandmothers caring for infants and toddlers in rural China.

Methods
Using survey data from 777 primary caregivers of children aged 5 to 25 months, we apply regression analysis and structural equation modeling to examine associations between social support, mental health literacy, parenting-related hardships, and mental health among mothers and grandmothers.

Results
The study finds that 33% of the caregivers report symptoms of mental health problems, with grandmothers experiencing more severe symptoms. Poor caregiver mental health is associated with lower child language (p < 0.05) and social-emotional development (p < 0.001). Social support and mental health literacy are associated with better mental health, but this association was not statistically significant among either the mothers or the grandmothers alone.

Conclusions
Enhancing caregiver mental health is crucial for children’s development. Social support and mental health literacy are predictors of mental health. Future research should examine the effect of improving social support and mental health literacy on the mental health of caregivers for young children.

Purpose
While peer effects in education have been extensively studied in developed countries, there has been limited investigation of how physical proximity shapes academic achievement in rural educational settings. This study examines peer effects among primary school students in rural China and investigates whether these effects operate differently across student ability levels through distinct mechanisms.

Design/methodology/approach
Data from 2,956 primary school students across rural counties in Shaanxi Province, China, were analyzed. We employ an instrumental variable approach using physical distance between students in classroom seating arrangements to address endogeneity in peer group formation. Study group formation is measured through student-reported study partnerships, while academic performance is assessed using standardized mathematics test scores.

Findings
Study groups significantly enhance student achievement, with heterogeneous effects across ability levels. Middle tercile students show the strongest peer effects (0.318 standard deviations), compared to bottom tercile students (0.241 standard deviations). Mechanism analysis reveals that peer effects operate primarily through improved intrinsic motivation, enhanced self-concept, and reduced academic anxiety among middle-performing students, while effects for bottom tercile students operate through alternative pathways not captured in our measures.

Research limitations/implications
Our findings inform cost-efficient policy interventions in both educational institutions and corporate environments. The evidence indicates that optimizing spatial proximity in peer networks represents an efficient policy instrument for human capital accumulation, particularly valuable in resource-constrained settings, as it leverages existing human capital without substantial additional inputs.

Originality/value
This study provides the first evidence of peer effects using classroom seating arrangements as an identification strategy in a developing country/rural community context. The paper demonstrates that optimizing peer proximity represents a cost-efficient policy instrument for human capital development in resource-constrained rural areas, offering important implications for educational policy in agricultural communities where traditional educational resources are limited.

Caregivers' ability to access, engage with, and critically evaluate digital information on parenting practices (henceforth, “e-parenting literacy”) is emerging as an increasingly important determinant of early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. Therefore, the current study provides empirical evidence of the role of e-parenting literacy for ECD outcomes of 6- to 24-month-olds (N = 564) in rural households in a coastal province in East-China. The study focuses on the role of e-parenting literacy of the two most common types of primary caregivers (i.e., persons in charge of the daily care) of young children in the study region: mother and grandmother caregivers. Empirical results show that 76% of the primary caregivers (N = 429) are mothers, the remaining 135 primary caregivers are grandmothers. Overall, e-parenting literacy is found to be positively and significantly associated with children's early cognitive development outcomes. Furthermore, a heterogeneity analysis shows that e-parenting literacy is positively and significantly associated with children's early cognitive and language outcomes when the primary caregiver is a grandmother, but not when the primary caregiver is a mother. This may reflect greater heterogeneity in grandmothers' digital device use and e-parenting literacy, while most mothers already possess adequate e-parenting skills. Additionally, older children (i.e., 16- to 24-month-olds), who may require more advanced parenting skills than their slightly younger peers, are also found to benefit more from gains in e-parenting literacy. This research highlights how digital inclusion can help to bridge gaps in caregiving practices and developmental opportunities of young children growing up in developing settings.

Introduction: Longitudinal trends in breastfeeding (BF) are often overlooked in favor of binary or time-to-cessation measures. Characterizing these trends can inform promotion of sustained BF practices. We identified distinct BF profiles among participants of a maternal and child health program.

Methods: The Healthy Future program consisted of community health workers delivering a BF curriculum to mothers through monthly home visits. The program was evaluated in rural Sichuan, China with a cluster-randomized controlled trial (assigned to program versus not). We clustered 6-month postpartum trends (n = 949) of maternal-reported infant feeding using dynamic time warping. For each month, participants were categorized as either exclusive breastfeeding (EBF), mixed feeding (MF, feeding breastmilk plus other foods or liquids), or not breastfeeding (NBF). After identifying clusters, we regressed BF profiles on intervention assignment using adjusted multinomial logistic regression.

Results: Cluster analysis revealed seven profiles: always EBF, always MF, never breastfed, EBF until the 5th month, MF until the 5th month, mostly EBF, and NBF from the 3rd month. The intervention was associated with improved odds of always EBF (ROR = 2.61, 95% CI 1.25, 5.42), MF until the 5th month (ROR = 2.52, 95% CI 1.18, 5.39), and NBF from the 3rd month (ROR = 2.82, 95% CI 1.16, 6.87) compared to being never breastfed. Mothers in the never breastfed cluster had the lowest age, education, BF knowledge and attitudes, and decision-making power.

Discussion: Cluster analyses found the intervention significantly improved EBF, particularly in mothers characterized by higher baseline educational attainment and BF knowledge. Targeted efforts are needed to help mothers initiate EBF from birth and continue EBF through month 6.

The rise of social media in the digital era poses unprecedented challenges to authoritarian regimes that aim to influence public attitudes and behaviors. To address these challenges, we argue that authoritarian regimes have adopted a decentralized approach to produce and disseminate propaganda on social media. In this model, tens of thousands of government workers and insiders are mobilized to produce and disseminate propaganda, and content flows in a multidirectional, rather than a top-down manner. We empirically demonstrate the existence of this new model in China by creating a novel data set of over five million videos from over 18,000 regime-affiliated accounts on Douyin, a popular social media platform in China. This paper supplements prevailing understandings of propaganda by showing theoretically and empirically how digital technologies are transforming not only the content of propaganda, but also how propaganda materials are produced and disseminated.

A growing body of research on large language models (LLMs) has identified various biases, primarily in contexts where biases reflect societal patterns. This article focuses on a different source of bias in LLMs—government censorship. By comparing foundation models developed in China and those from outside China, we find substantially higher rates of refusal to respond, shorter responses, and inaccurate responses to a battery of 145 political questions in China-originating models. These disparities diminish for less-sensitive prompts, showing that technological and market differences cannot fully explain this divergence. While all models exhibit higher refusal to respond rates with Chinese-language prompts than English ones, language differences are less pronounced than disparities between China-originating and non-China-originating models. We caution that our study is observational and cross-sectional and does not establish a causal linkage between regulatory pressures and censorship behaviors of China-originating LLMs, but these results suggest that censorship through government regulation requiring companies to restrict political content may be an important factor contributing to political bias in LLMs.